By Dr Bill Peddie

One of the consequences of taking services round the countryside is that the lay preacher is bound to encounter a variety of theologies amongst those in the pew.  For those who have the good fortune to preach in churches where congregations rejoice in sound theology based on rigorous scholarship it is something of a surprise to encounter old-style fundamentalism when one travels further afield.  Yet fundamentalism is alive and well in some quarters and in some places this extends to rejection of modern evolutionary biology, geology and astrophysics which are seen as opposed to the truth of the bible.   I have encountered those who criticise scientific findings like the assertion that the Earth is much older than 6000 years, 

By Dr Bill Peddie

At the time of the Inangahua Earthquake in 1968, even Christchurch swayed around a bit in the middle of the night. In the daily newspaper of the time there was the story of a Christchurch couple reporting that their four year old daughter who had been sitting on the toilet at the time could be heard calling out, "God, stop shaking the house .... At least until I am finished!" With our modern understanding of earthquakes and movement of tectonic plates we can smile at this simplistic image of a God personally interfering in this way, but historically there is plenty of evidence to suggest that at one time the metaphor of God, as the divine arranger of such matters was a standard belief.